Sorry about that cruise. Wrong of Carnival to insist you travel in dangerous waters. I Lived in Houston during IKE and was without power for 13 days. Even then I think I would have rather been on a cruise. I was on the Conquest during a storm coming back from Cozumel and only good thing about that was the line at the buffet was shorter. Gotta love Dramamine.
Hope your other cruises have been better,

See exactly what I mean .. its easy to judge. Even people like you who lived close to Galveston who could have gotten to their cars and moved them to safety, they would rather have been home when Ike struck and not worrying about their homes from afar. If you remember Ike made the turn less than 24 hours before it hit Galveston .. so there wasnt time for those who lived further to get anyone to Galveston to get their cars out. Most on the ship lost their cars.

I never saw my car again, and lost all the contents because I didnt have homeowners insurance. I had all the CDs I owned on that trip to listen to in the car, in a folder I never got back. I had lived in Hawaii and bought a lot of very old Hawaiian music that I lost.

I think its too easy for people to judge that all cruises are nothing but good and complaints are never valid. .. like you jumping in and saying you would rather have been on the cruise (and lost your car) than at home during the storm. I live north of Dallas and parked at EZCruise .. and to this day remain loyal to them for guarding my car from tow trucks until Allstate finally showed up. Allstate was one of the last insurance companies to finally show up and by then Galveston had given tow trucks permission to tow any cars they could get to. I was on the phone daily to Cindy the owner of EZCruise.

I know I didnt sleep well during the cruise, worried. That did not enhance my cruise experience. Spent a extra $200 on drugs for my sister in Cozumel when they told us they didnt know when we could go back to the U.S. or where .. so I got a extra weeks worth of drugs for cash and paid $60 for prescriptions at the hospital in Cozumel, plus cab etc. fun fun fun Just what I wanted to do while in Cozumel for 24 hours.. got to the hospital and drug store and get to a phone making emergency calls trying to figure out a way to get someone all the way to get my car.. Impossible.

My parents are elderly and I live north of Dallas, no way to get anyone to get to Galveston to get to my car and get keys to them.

Carnival gave us 12 hours notice of going into New Orleans, but didnt have phone numbers set up .. so I spent all that night trying to get a outside line to rent a car. 2 hours sleep that night. Stand in line 4 hours at the pursers desk to make a call. If you called from your cabin, they just hung up on you (one of my complaints when I wrote and complained how they handled it). I was with a HC lady who was calling the desk trying to set up HC disembarkation from the ship. The pursers desk was overwhelmed. We were told after 5 pm on sunday night the ship would pull into New Orleans and we had to get off the ship for customs but could get back on the ship .. nothing was known past that point for another 24 hours .. so I got a rental car and got the people back to Dallas I was responsible for. I was long gone by Monday night when they got permission to go back to Houston with the ship.

Pretty expensive cruise with the extra drugs and rental car and losing my own car and contents. Carnival's contribution was one free phone call. No other help .. and it was a mess onboard with everyone trying to make arrangements. So, you really would rather have gone thru this than be at home where you could keep a eye on your house when Ike hit? Ive been thru several, at least 3 hurricanes when I lived in Florida, and glad I was home to take care of things, move patio furniture etc. But thats me.